In 1848 the Metropolitan Asylums
Board opened the Highgate Smallpox and Vaccination Hospital to replace
a smallpox hospital in St Pancras, which had to be demolished as the
Great Northern Railway needed the site for Kings Cross station.

The Hospital - one of the two isolation hospitals in London at that
time (the other was the London Fever Hospital in Liverpool Road) - was
intended to care for smallpox patients during the epidemic at that
time. By 1867 it had 108 beds. Intended for paying
patients, it was supported by voluntary contributions, but admitted
paupers if beds were available. If continued as a smallpox
hospital until 1896, when Clare Hall Hospital
opened at South Mimms.
The Metropolitan Asylums Board sold the 9 acre site to the
Islington Guardians to use as a workhouse infirmary.

The Union built a large infirmary with 800 beds adjacent to the old
smallpox hospital buildings. Officially opened in 1900 by the
Duke and Duchess of York, the Highgate Hill Infirmary had a central
administration and service block with ward blocks either side.
The slope of the site meant that the northern blocks were 4
storeys high and the southern ones 3 storeys.

In 1914 it was renamed Islington Infirmary. By 1920 five linked
blocks had been added to the south of the original building.
Various out-buildings for laundry, stores and the mortuary were
located to the rear of the old smallpox hospital, which itself had
become the Nurses' Home. A tunnel linked the Nurses' Home to the
ward blocks.

In 1930 administration for the Hospital was taken over by the LCC and
it became St Mary's Hospital, part of the Archway Group. It had
836 beds and was far more modern than the other two hospitals in the
Group - the Archway and the Highgate Hospitals.

By the time it became part of the NHS in 1948, it had merged with
the Archway Hospital in Archway Road
and the Highgate Hospital in Dartmouth
Park Hill to form the Whittington Hospital.

In 1977 a new block opened, containing the Accident and Emergency,
Out-Patients and Imaging Departments, together with pathology
laboratories.

Further new buildings were added during the 1970s and by 1980 the site
contained a 6-storey psychiatric wing. The Whittington Hospital
at this time had 804 beds.

In 1992 the Great Northern building opened on the site. It
contains modern wards and education facilities - a lecture theatre,
seminar rooms - as well as a computer cluster room, office
accommodation for the Deanery staff, a staff restaurant and a common
sitting room for undergraduates.

Present status (March 2008)
Clinical services are now centred at the St Mary's Wing of the
Whittington Hospital. The Hospital currently has
467 beds.The new main entrance in Magdala Avenue
opened recently.

The original Smallpox and Vaccination
Hospital building

The Kenwood Wing, an old ward block, as
seen from Darkmouth Park Road

The Female Receiving Ward, now the maternity wing
Another old ward block, still in use for physiotherapy,
occupational therapy and social work

The former Nurses' Home is now called
the Jenner Building and is used as office accommodation

The new entrance to the Hospital in Magdala Avenue

In
the debate as to what to call the newly formed hospital, the two main
candidate names were 'Trinity' and 'Whittington'. Legend
has it that Dick Whittington with his cat turned back on hearing the
bells of Bow as he was leaving via Highgate Hill. Sir
Richard Whittington later became rich and became Lord Mayor of
London three times.

A small carving of a stone
cat, with its head turned facing back to London, can be seen on
Highgate Hill near the entrance to the Accident and Emergency
Department.